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A SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY CHIEF OLUSEGUN OBASANJO,
PRESIDENT AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF
NIGERIA
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His Excellency Chief Olusegun
Obasanjo, President and Commander-in-Chief of The
Federal Republic of Nigeria. |
DURING THE WORLD PRESENTATION OF THE BOOK: THE GRAM
CODE OF AFRICAN ADAM, STONE BOOKS AND CAVE LIBRARIES,
450,000 YEARS OF AFRICA’S LOST
CIVILIZATIONS.
Date: 24th NOV. 2005.
Venue: NICON HILTON, ABUJA.
Gentlemen of the national and international Media, we are gathered here
today to bear witness to the coming alive of a book titled The Gram
Code of African Adam. A curious title for an even more curious book.
Yet, when I was informed by my former Senior Special Assistant on Arts and
Culture, Prof Catherine Acholonu and her co-author Engr. Ajay Prabhakar that
I was going to be the Special Guest of Honor to present the book at this
World Press Conference, I did not hesitate in giving my consent. I even went
further to appoint one of my serving Special Advisers to review the book for
the Presidency with a view to giving the necessary support to the ongoing
research project that brought about this first harvest.
It is very gratifying to me and indeed every African and every black man
and woman that African scholars are conducting research that will once and
for all debunk the ago old fallacy that Africa has no History. Could it ever
have been true that Africa has no History, is it even possible to find any
set of people of whom it can be truly said that they have no History? The
answer is no, because a people with no History is a people with no
existence, for nations cannot exist without making History within their own
geographical environment, the fact that some other nation or nations living
some thousands of miles away do not know about it does not in any way divest
it of the legitimacy of that History. Professor Catherine Acholonu and her
group of researchers have demonstrated that the classifications of nations,
continents and peoples as “civilized” or “uncivilized” and/or “primitive”
is a matter of semantics, and that the parameters for judgement of who is
civilized and who is not was predetermined in this Age by men and women who
did not seem to possess all the facts of the issue.
The one big lesson that The Gram Code of African Adam teaches
us, which is neatly couched in the book’s Foreword, is that “unless a people
can write their own History, their destiny shall be defined for them by
others”. This is the crux of the matter and this has been the Albatross that
has been weighing down the psyche and the consciousness of the African and
the Black man. Today, thanks to the courage, resourcefulness, dogged
determination and foresight of the men and women of The Ikom Gram
Project, the black man, black woman and black youth all aver the
world now possess a document that has unequivocally documented for posterity
the buried, forgotten and lost achievements of our Black African ancestors
on the Pre-Historic global scene. My acceptance of this invitation is more than eloquent
testimony of the importance government attaches to this
project, and government places special premium on research
projects that will help to advance indigenous knowledge.
African culture has been assessed mainly from its
entertainment content, but the book we are about to present
to the world today has ex-rayed the intellectual content of
African culture as well as the deeper mystical meanings of
her signs and symbols.
It has demonstrated in no
uncertain terms the immensity of what can be achieved through hard work,
perseverance and attention to detail. I commend the researchers of the Ikom
monoliths who are also the authors of The Gram Code of African Adam
for their painstaking efforts and for the strength of the arguments with
which they pulled together their findings and drew them to very logical
conclusions that seem to me to be capable of standing any intellectual test
anywhere in the world.
These scholars have demonstrated what heights can be achieved by mankind
through intercontinental cooperation beyond the boundaries of Race, Gender
and Creed. They have demonstrated that mankind can scale unimaginable
heights in the vanguard of true knowledge when the barriers that have
traditionally separated the Sciences and the Arts are overcome.
In the Gram Code of African Adam, Prof. Catherine Acholonu,
Engr. Prabhakar and the rest of their team of researchers searched through
ancient records from sources as diverse as the pyramid inscriptions in the
tombs of the Pharaohs of Egypt, cuneiform writings of Mesopotamia, ancient
stone inscriptions from Cross River State, Nigeria and cave archives in the
Sahara dating back more than eight thousand years, to bring to the world
evidence that Black Africans were the lords of the ancient Pre-Deluge world
and the Super Powers of antiquity. That our fore fathers bestrode the
ancient world like Colossi, and that it was they, who after the destruction
of the thriving cities of the north African nation of Agade left the home
continent under the name Akkadians, Chaldean Magi Druids and Olmecs to
inhabit Europe, Asia Minor, Asia Major and the Americas, bringing with them
learning, Astronomy, Religion, Culture, Technology and everything that later
generations were to know as civilization.
The scientific nature of their approach to their subject is what makes it
all the more intriguing. Leaning on recent discoveries in Genetic
Engineering, in particular Mitochondrial DNA research conducted in no fewer
than four leading universities in USA which have already proved that Eve,
the mother of mankind, was an African, Acholonu and her crew went a step
further to bring to the world compelling argument and evidence that
mankind’s first parents Adam and Eve were West Africans and that the
Biblical Center of Eden where they first lived in union with God, was a
Nigeria/Cameroon location. All this is done with the highest form of respect
and equanimity for all religions, races and peoples of the world and their
varying shades of opinion.
The book is appropriately subtitled “A Handbook of the African Renaissance”.
As we all know, and this is very fortuitous indeed, for Nigeria has been
championing the cause for an African Renaissance: and a Renaissance is
usually not a Renaissance unless it is a rebirth of Knowledge, Art and,
Consciousness, and above all, of Culture. Culture is the bedrock of all
human development. Culture is the humanizing factor in human affairs.
Culture is the soul of civilization. In culture lies the key to self
understanding and self-actualization of every nation. This much has been
demonstrated in the pages of The Gram Code of African Adam.
Therefore I have no hesitation in recommending the book as a pioneering
Handbook for African Renaissance and indeed World Renaissance, for the world
has need of a new vision, a new cultural paradigm that takes into full
consideration Africa’s unsung heroes and the stupendous achievements of our
Black African ancestors revealed unabashedly for the first time in known
history through the searchlight of The Gram Code of African Adam.
Acholonu and her research team have done a great job. Considering the
complexity of their revelations, one can easily deduce that they have merely
scratched the surface, showing us the enormity of work that is yet to be
done, and they can not do it alone. They need all our support, and I call on
the Academic community in Nigeria and Africa and all over the Black world to
get to work on this new field of research that will eventually remove from
Africa and its peoples the tag of “primitive Savage”, and showcase her great
potentials as the Super Power of the Pre-Deluge civilizations of the world.
And on this note I present to you the new book The Gram Code of
African Adam, to the glory of God, edification of mankind and uplifting
of the Black and African Consciousness.
CHIEF OLUSEGUN OBASANJO (GCFR)
President and Commander-In-Chief
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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